BATMAN’S ARCH FOES DEBATE IN SOUTH CAROLINA

There they were for all to see, the saddest bunch of comic book characters to come down the pike in many an election season: Two-Face, The Joker, Mr. Freeze, The Riddler and the Mad Hatter. Otherwise known as Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

After giving the old heave-ho to Poison Ivy (Michelle Bachman), and Clayman, (John Huntsman), the five survivors find themselves locked in a death struggle to determine who alone is crazy enough, strong enough, and rich enough, to battle Batman for supremacy in Gotham City (also known as America).

Though they employ many falsehoods to disguise their evil intent, all five super-villains are fighting for the right to dismantle America’s social safety net, turn back the advance of voting rights, protect the rights of millionaires to suck up ever larger percentages of the country’s wealth, and to further restrict the rights of adults and teenagers when it comes to control of their bodies. Though no one would stand up for the now obsolete idea of American Morality and Fair Play, the Mad Hatter stood apart from his peers in that he alone disparaged America’s senseless killing sprees, also known as Wars, though he appeared less concerned about America abandoning its principles to torture its non-Christian prisoners.

The question remains why would any sane American Voter put an X next to any of their names? Rather than stand for anything that would raise our standing in the world, or amongst ourselves, they content themselves to make idle threats against Batman, like wary combatants stepping backward into the restraining arms of friends, shouting “Let me at him!”, accusing Batman of any crime or intention that might resonate with America’s voters. Cries of “Socialist!” and “Incompetent” are meant to combat the Masked Avenger’s agenda to support the impoverished, needy and disadvantaged. Amazingly, Two-Face, perhaps a billionaire himself, decries Batman’s assaults on Free Enterprise and Unfeeling Republican Philosophy, eschewing Batman’s attempts to secure money for the middle class and America’s long-standing social programs by raising taxes on those who would never feel the pinch of an increase.

It would all be totally unbelievable if we read it in a comic book. But to see it on our TV screens, each of these madcap villains playing to the lowest instincts of an unseen audience of crazies and maladjusteds, is to make one realize that, like Dorothy, we’ve been transported to a strange new world.

And I don’t mean South Carolina.